Cinema: Buy British

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The Divorce of Lady X (Alexander Korda). A neat pick-me-up for jaded grownups. Producer Korda's first try in Technicolor is a saucy farce with three attractive attributes: 1) provocative Eurasian-looking Merle Oberon cutting the comic corners with all her curves and fast ones; 2) a top-flight British cast; 3) Technicolor. Aside from that used in animated cartoons, most Technicolor is a prettifying process that sets great store on being called "unobtrusive." Lady X's Technicolor is consciously as obtrusive as possible, jumped on production cost to $1,2000,000. When the scene opens on a nasty London night, Technicolor sets the mood with blinking Bovril and Schweppe signs through a dank yellow fog. When Actor Laurence Olivier discovers a sprightly message daubed on his hotel-room mirror, the audience can see at a glance that it was written with Actress Oberon's lipstick. In the country, horses, dogs and gentry chasing across light-bathed landscapes are hunting prints in motion. As scientifically suspect as the theory that the waters of the Liffey make the best stout is the notion that British water develops the best in Technicolor. But whatever the natural aids, Producer Korda's Technicolor is the best yet.

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